


Kintsugi

by Archaema



Series: Pharmercy Drabbles [9]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Grief/Mourning, Learning to Live with Loss, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 17:11:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaema/pseuds/Archaema
Summary: With time, can loss that destroys your world bring purpose?Fareeha Amari has faced down that challenge, and has the scars on her heart to prove it.





	Kintsugi

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a quick drabble that came to mind because sad music.

Fareeha’s dark-skinned hands slid under the stream of warm water from the sink, soothing the tension of her taut muscles. With a sigh, she pulled them up and ran them through her hair, the gold beads she wore clinking quietly against each other before she met her own gaze in the mirror.

Her ochre eyes were as vivid as they had ever been, despite the encroachment of a small web of wrinkles at the corners. Maybe it made her look experienced, she had told herself when she first noticed their invasion. At the least, the black ink of the udjat below her right eye was undimmed, thanks to a visit to a tattoo artist who had touched up the pattern. It had hurt as much as it had the first time, and yet she had barely given it acknowledgment. 

In Fareeha Amari’s eyes, the woman who looked back at her was tired.

In her heart, she knew that she was, the unmerciful strain of the past always pressed inward against her chest. She had developed a minor heart beat irregularity, and indeed, while she knew full well the scope and diagnosis associated with arrhythmia, it was one time where she let the jargon fall away.

Pharah’s heart had been broken.

It was not through betrayal or physical wounds; those were things she had always expected when she had been in the Egyptian Army, Helix, and later Overwatch. When she had accepted the pinning of the pips of Strike Commander on her collar, she had known risk would always exist.

Accolades and pride, even years of success, she found, offered no salve to the loss of your loved ones. Teammates she could endure, and had many times, even though she had learned to grieve for them. 

When Angela Ziegler was taken by a cruel quirk of fate, though, grieving was almost impossible.

There were days, weeks, months lost to the cloud of darkness that fell over her the day she learned. Self-loathing for not being present, regret at not seeing her off, and the worst, the thought that there was anything at all she could have done to affect what happened all tore apart her confidence.

Pharah only went on two missions after that day, and she still could not remember either. She knew the action reports by heart, but nothing reached her memory of the events transpiring. Nothing, but a crimson veil of rage, as she exacted revenge that she could not even recall. She had been fortunate it had been within her mission specifications, but the obvious conclusion had been that she was not fit for action.

It had been a surprise when she had agreed and stepped down. There were other talented leadership candidates, and she had felt no qualms about their expertise. In one corner of her heart, she almost found it funny that she had managed to saddle Jesse McCree with such a proper job. 

The weeks after she returned home to Cairo had passed quickly; her pension had been sufficient to let her crash inward upon herself. Never had the former soldier fallen so low as that time. The shrine to her wife in the corner of her apartment had been the only thing attended to at all as she let debris accrue everywhere else.

In Fareeha’s mind, Angela was forever pristine. Pure of heart and intent, any argument or disagreement, the foibles of a normal couple’s life, had been long forgotten.

Only when Hana Song had turned up at the door of her apartment and literally pried it open with the help of Sombra, had she taken notice of anything – not even her mother’s attempts to visit.

On that day, Fareeha properly began to allow herself to grieve, with the help of her visitors. 

Fareeha rubbed at her chest, frowning slightly before she let out a slow sigh, gathering her focus for what was ahead.

“I know the pain will never go away,” Ana said. Quiet, her voice could have been a whisper from a ghost, but Fareeha caught her form in the doorway to the restroom in the corner of the mirror. Lifting her chin, she exhaled her own sigh of weariness. She fixed her daughter with her familiar one-eyed gaze. “But know that she wouldn’t ever willingly leave you.”

Every time someone spoke to her of Angela, it made Fareeha’s heart ache all the worse.  Just the same she knew her mother’s intent, and the truth of it. 

“I know,” Fareeha said softly. There was a pause, as she tried to chase away the dryness in her mouth. 

In her mother’s eye, she saw the full weight of her eighty years. The intervening years had aged Fareeha only a fraction of what would have been normal. Angela had not wanted her technology to let her stay untouched as she watched her wife age. In the end, it had been perhaps the worst twist that losing her had played on Fareeha, condemning her to decades longer than any other person would have been forced to endure the memory of their beloved. 

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” With a rueful shake of her head, Fareeha lifted her hand so that Ana could focus on the silver band on her ring finger. A single blue stone shone in the room’s light, as though it were some magical artifact.

“People can see how hard this was for you, you know.” Ana stepped toward her and rested a light touch of her fingertips on the sleeve of Fareeha’s white coat. It was comforting; Fareeha had grown unaccustomed to the touch of other people in the intervening years. Her mother, at least, had proven immune to that aversion. “Somewhere, I like to think she knows too, and she’s thankful for it.”

“I appreciate you and everyone else bringing me food for those nights studying,” Fareeha said, managing a ghost of a smile. “It’s meant everything to me.” It had meant as much as anything else could, after she had lost the deepest bond of soul.

“Well, I admit it was difficult to learn how to fix a few of those dishes, but I’m happy they were adequate.” There was a bit of pride in Ana’s voice; she had not been an avid cook in the past, but the few Swiss dishes she had learned had turned out to be ones she could master.

“Adequate? You’re responsible for me putting on twenty pounds,” Fareeha replied with a shake of her head. “Thank you, mom. I mean it.”

When they had first reunited, it had been difficult to embrace one another. Even understanding Ana Amari’s reasons for disappearing from the world, it had still left a gulf in their relationship that had taken time to mend.

Fareeha was thankful for it, for it allowed her to do what she did next.

Her arms raised, and Fareeha wrapped them around Ana. She felt her mother hug her back in response, a firm, slow embrace that assuaged a bit of the constantly burning pain deep within. She sniffled once, holding back herself from tears. Her makeup, after all, would be less forgiving than her mother would be of tears.

“Are you ready, Dr. Amari?” 

The voice came from outside the door, one of the attendants at the conference rapping on it lightly.

“Already?” Fareeha intoned quietly, shaking her head as she pulled back from her mother. 

“I’m afraid so.” Ana tugged at the white lapel of Fareeha’s coat, then patted it into place with a mother’s practiced touch. Satisfied, she looked up to her daughter’s face, lips tugging up in a smile that shone through all the age and experience that she had ridden out in her time. “Remember, you’ve earned this.” 

“She always wanted to save people,” Fareeha said, smiling in response. With a smooth motion, she put her glasses into place, letting the black frame settle against her aquiline nose lightly. 

“I’m sure she is proud of you.”

It still hurt, but...

Perhaps there was at least some comfort there. The ache of loss would never cease, and she had learned to at least somewhat live with that.

It was, at least, enough to let her carry on each day. 

It was enough to help her turn to the door, give her mother’s hand a quick squeeze in thanks, and to step. Down the short hallway, a scant moment away, she stepped out onto a wide stage, a thousand eyes upon her and the holographic screen shimmering in the air behind her. Words hovered, ethereal in their glow, heralding her.

_ Dr. Fareeha Amari, presenting Medical Nanobiotic Technology and Applied Life-Saving Intervention Techniques _

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you liked this piece or others I've created, and feel free to leave any constructive criticism in comments here or in asks at our tumblrs, including if you spy a missing tag or typos (they're evil):  
> http://archaema.tumblr.com/  
> http://offkeelworld.tumbr.com/


End file.
